Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

OP is explicitly asking for hacks and "out there" solutions, I think this is a reasonable place to post anecdata, papers, personal theories, etc. as long as people state their confidence level and link to sources when possible

↑This. Stop. No. Don't go down the false hope path. It's cruel AF and puts off acceptance, wasting time that they can put to better use post acceptance.

Maybe let your friend explore what they want to do and you just give support. Celebrate what they celebrate and cry with them when they cry. Find(or better make) them some comfy/cute hats. If you want to research the things about the hospital, the procedures they are getting, the oncologists they are seeing, and drop re-affirming 'you are getting the best care'. They want to feel like they are getting good treatment. Not like 'if only they got something else they would have a better chance'. But reality is, they are getting the care they are going to getting. Hype the heck out of it, reassure them. Even if the care sucks, find something to hype. Ease the 'if only' burden/regret/fear on them, don't contribute to it with 'if only you could go see Joel Olsteen's prosparity preaching in person and he blessed you' or go see John of God in Brazil or something. If nothing else hype that the WHO ranked France in best overall healthcare. Leave out the 'in 2000'. 'Thank god we are in France, who the WHO ranked best in overall healthcare'. Find things for them to take comfort in.

https://www.who.int/news/item/07-02-2000-world-health-organi...

My impression formed from my time in cancer drug discovery is that bro science is, within practical bounds, a perfectly reasonable option for one arm of a comprehensive plan for treatment.

A lot of things that sound like bro science are actually broadly supported in the literature. But studying this stuff is hard because of all of the usual issues with human subjects, the less than complete reliability of our epistemic institutions, and the infeasibility of running enough trials to address every indication in every subcohort. So if anecdata supports some intervention that that isn't aggressively inconsistent with basic theory, won't make you miserable for what might be the rest of your life, and which you could try with the sober understanding that your One Weird Trick might not work, why not?

If nothing else, a well-documented case study with good adherence tells us of one more thing that didn't work, which is hardly the worst parting gift to the world.

It's false hope, swallowed hook line and sinker.

dont get why that upsets you. I have had a chronic disease my whole life and one of the people who offered help completely saved my life.

If anyone else told me to eat apricots Id be grateful for their time and attention.

I would probably eat the apricots and tell them it was fantastic, even if it had no effect.

Sorry I just have rarely seen my friends or family offer any advice.

- Back to OP, Ive always remembered Paul Stamets recommending the stamets-7 mushroom blend with research papers talking about recession. no idea if it works.

> I should’ve ate more apricots!

Did you mention apricots deliberately? Apricot pits were a huge, huge alternative medicine in the 1970s under the name Laetrile. Proponents said that Laetrile would cure cancer and was being covered up. The FDA banned it, saying that it accomplished nothing other than potential cyanide poisoning. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of patients a year went to Laetrile clinics in Mexico and spent tons of money on it. Laetrile was smuggled into the US from Mexico, second only to marijuana. Enthusiasm dwindled after studies failed to find a benefit. (Just some hopefully interesting history about apricots.)

A news article from the time: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977/11/27/939...

Exercise can supposedly help outcomes for some types of cancer—-I wonder whether the mechanism is similar to that of fasting. The supposed mechanism AIUI is that exercise makes less glucose available to the tumor. Podcast with more info here: https://overcast.fm/+6j6rLbfGM

I have a relative with glioblastoma who could see his granddaughter born if he extends his life a while. Thanks a lot for sharing!

I'm one of those stubborn types that will refuse all medical treatments, lots of fasting is my current go to strategy if some tumor gets out of control.

There was an episode from “diary of a ceo” (don’t let the title fool you) where a scientist was making similar remarks:

https://youtu.be/VaVC3PAWqLk

I wouldn’t usually post these kind of things, but since OP is asking for moonshots i’ll take a chance.

Best of luck to your friend!

Thanks

> Addiction and other disorders are common among people with terminal or not-so-great prognosis

It's horrifying that we don't just give them what they want. Who are we to judge?

Stopping opioid because a cancer patient is addicted is incredibly cruel! sorry for your lost.

Addiction and other disorders are common among people with terminal or not-so-great prognosis.

Or maybe his death was an outlier .pain meds are well tolerated by most people.

This. It is very dependent on the type of cancer. There is a lot of research on this. For a little context, I was a pediatric neurology professor for a while, and have been on a low carb diet for a decade. Much of the department did low carb, as did much of the oncology dept. Many kids with epilepsy are put on keto as well with great effect. I did a deep dive into low carb research before starting and keeping with the diet, and found a lot about using it for cancer therapy. I'm not sure what has changed in the last 10 years, but the above abstract looks promising. With a GBM, they probably don't have much to lose. *This is not medical advice, I'm not an MD (I was a BME doing epilepsy research), have them check with their Dr.

If diet could stop cancer, we'd be done by now. I guarantee every cancer will mutate to overcome any change in diet you can throw at it.

I wish I had something better to add, but I can add an anecdotal +1 to this.

A relative went keto pretty hard after a bad diagnosis and they are still going strong. As far as I understand it, cancer cells can only function on glucose.

+1 on this. I did my thesis on Glioblastoma-related imaging stuff [1]. The state of the art at the time (~2016) was that, realistically, none of the current treatments were "great", unfortunately. In short, you have 1) surgery, 2) chemotherapy, 3) radiation. Those treatments did extend survival in studies, but the overall survival of Glioblastoma patients was (tragically) still very bad at 12-24 months, and none of those therapy options were a cure.

As a side note, I recommend the book "Being Mortal" from Atul Gawande. The TLDR here is that our healthcare systems tend to overtreat patients, especially those with cancer who actually have a rather bleak prognosis, because it's easier for a physician to simply order all treatments and tell the patient "all good here, good luck" instead of taking the time to sit down and have a (long) conversation about the bleak prognosis and which options are actually still worth it. By "worth it" I mean that there are trade-offs to each treatment option, and it takes some very careful weighing whether each one provides a net benefit for your friend's individual situation. E.g. surgery might extend survival by X months, but might also create, worst case, new disabilities. So now you're faced with the very difficult decision of whether to potentially live for a shorter time with less disabilities, or for a longer time with more. There's no perfect answer, but having this sort of discussion is a good step which many patients unfortunately never take. I think this is a failure in our healthcare systems and maybe in the education of physicians.

Now, if I personally had a Glioblastoma, on top of the standard of care (surgery probably makes sense etc.), I think the ketogenic diet would currently be my best shot. Yeah, sure.. it's mostly only case reports so essentially anecdotal evidence, but it does look promising.

Good luck for your friend!

[1] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tinu7tYAAAAJ&hl=en

Thanks a lot, I hadn't seen this. I'll read through.

While we're thinking about it, Vitamin D3 and K2-mk-7 are known to be helpful in that regard.

Scolyer is in the relatively fortunate position of being a world class cancer researcher before getting cancer, so he had the resources of an entire oncology lab to give himself a speculative treatment.

> I am pretty cynical that people know the cause, but don't want to deal with it.

I looked up "long island breast cancer" and saw a long list of risk factors. Out of curiosity, did you have a specific one in mind?

My aunt is in her 70s and has 5 friends currently with cancer. My belief is that it's downstream effects from Covid wrecking people's immune systems and their ability to naturally fight cancer. Time will tell.

I was about to say this knowing 4 people with GBM means there is something in your environment causing this.

I am sorry about your friends.

No it's so weird, no connection at all between any of them.